Technology Report.Silicon Designs, Inc. (SDI) has developed a miniature accelerometer technology which combines additive micro machining and integrated
circuit technology to produce a highly reliable, capacitive, acceleration sensor. The SDI approach of building sensors out of nickel based
materials is one of the first commercial successes of non-silicon MEMS
(Micro - Electro Mechanical Systems) sensors. This basic design found
application through the 1990's in markets including advanced single point air bag control modules as well as industrial and commercial testing,
and aerospace. Since initial development, our ongoing research has resulted in improvements that have increased the reliability, sensitivity,
and survivability of our accelerometers to a point that they are being used in entirely new areas such as inertial navigation and high temperature
environments.

Abstract:
This paper describes a self-test procedure for a micromachined silicon
accelerometer realized using a commercially available microprocessor. The
accelerometer is fabricated using a combination of thick-film printing and
silicon micromachining. The self-test procedure must be performed at
resonance and the microprocessor is used to identify the individual
resonant frequency of each device and confirm the operation of the PZT
elements. The microprocessor could also be used in the future to fully
test and calibrate the device thereby ensuring correct and accurate
operation.

Abstract: This paper presents a
solution to improve the performance of a micro electro-mechanical system
(MEMS) accelerometer exploring oversampling and sensor fusion
techniques. The proposed solution seems to be adequate for any
measurement application that requires sensor fusion of two quantities,
acceleration and temperature. The measurement system includes
auto-calibration (AC) routines and software modules (SM) to evaluate
noise level amplitude for self-dithering data processing and to improve
the measurement reliability using self-testing techniques.